Essential Sites

Scrooge's Nephew's Speech

"There are many things from which I might have derived good by
which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew, "Christmas
among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time,
when it has come round-apart from... the veneration
due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be
apart from that-as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant
time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when
men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely,
and to think of people below them as if they really were
fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound
on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a
scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"